February 12 - Starless

King Crimson offers many challenges to listeners. Although their earliest incarnations are pretty traditional progressive rock, the early to mid-seventies incarnation of the group started experimenting quite heavily. Led by Robert Fripp on guitar and mellotron, he is joined by Bill Bruford on drums, John Wetton on bass and vocals, and David Cross on violin and keyboards - and this is really a spectacular collection of musicians creating very new and different music.

Today's song, Starless, starts out as a ballad with a beautiful, haunting melody. Robert Fripp plays the mellotron initially, an instrument that really is the precursor to the sampled keyboards of today. Every time you hit a key, the mellotron plays a tape - just like a cassette player would - for that specific note. If you wanted to change instrument sounds, you needed to replace the cartridge, which was a pretty massive thing - there is a great video of this in the Making of Heritage film that came with Opeth's Heritage album. It is also one of the main instruments of early progressive rock - and it was all over King Crimson's music.

Anyway, the melody is hauntingly beautiful, as I said. The first time I heard it was actually in a concert recording of Motorpsycho performing it back in 96 or thereabout. I also had heard an edited version of the song, but that version took away the truly challenging part of this song, which is the guitar part. Robert Fripp holds one note, played on two alternating strings. He holds that one note while the bass plays a pretty heavy and groove laden riff, creating really strong tension between the two instruments that the listener keep waiting for a resolution to, but it goes on for almost 4 minutes - from about 4'15" to about 8'00 - yet it is still not completely resolved as the band enters a full free form sounding mode (although I suspect Robert Fripp has it carefully planned out). There is eventually resolution, and after the long build-up of tension, the release the resolution brings is immensely powerful. I know the instrumental part of this song gives me goosebumps every time - and it needs to be played loud for maximum effect!